Corset-steel fastening



(N0 Model.) I I T. Cf BATES.

CORSET STEEL FASTENING.

Patented June 16, 1885.

M6695; M fifiaiore W%wm W7 N PETERS. Pboln-Lilbographu, Wnhinglvn D. C.

UNITED STATES PATENT QFFI E.

THEODORE O. BATES, OF NORTH BROOKFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.

CQRSET-STEEL FASTENlNG.

'UPECEEFICAIEIQN forming part of Letters Patent No. 319,948, dated June 16, 1885.

(No model.)

To all whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that. I, THEODORE G. BATES, of North Brookfield, county of \Vorcester,

State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improvement in Oorset-Steel Fastenings, of which the following description, in connection with This invention has for its object the production of a simple and efficient eye-plate which shall possess in itself the quality of acting as a lock-clasp in connection with the usual stud I on the opposite steel.

Prior to this my invention, so called lockclasps have been produced in which a spring connected with or lying next the usual eyeplate has acted to spring behind the stud when the latter is moved into the outer part of the eye-plate. To avoid attaching a spring to the eye-plate or to the steel near it, and yet produce a loclrclasp which is well suited for use with many corsets, I have made the eye-plate itself act as a locking-clasp by slitting the same at its outer end, and by making a part of the connecting-slot between the opening therein, into which the head of the stud first enters, and the opening in which the stud is received and rests when the corset is hooked, of less diameter than the diameter of the stud, so that as the latter, in moving from the entranceopening, preferably larger than the receivingopening, passes the said narrow spot in the said connectiugslot, it causes the two arms of the eye-plate to expand, the slot made through the outer end thereof making that possible, and the stud having passed the narrow spot of the said connecting slot, the metal of the eye-plate, it possessing sufficient elasticity to act as a spring, closes behind the said stud and retains it in the receivingopening. The slit at the end of the eye-plate is so much narrower than the diameter of the stud that the latter cannot get through it except by twisting the steel and the eye-plate, when the two arms of the latter may be sprung out of the same plane for the passage of the stud outward; but this is not the preferable manner of unhooking the corset from the body.

Figure 1 represents a pair of corsetsteels, sometimes called busks, containing my improvements; Fig. 2, a section thereof on the line as m,- Fig. 3, the eye-plate alone with the shank of the stud in full and dotted lines in its two extreme positions; and Fig. 4 shows an eyeplate having a modified form of slot.-

The steel A has the usual headed studs, a. The steel B has the usual eye-plates,*b, and near its upper and lower end one of my improved lock-clasps c c, which are attached to the said steel by rivets a. Thelock-clasps are composed of metallic eye plates herein shown shaped externally as the usual eye-plates. Each lock-clasp has a stud-entering opening, 2, large enough to permit the head of the stud a to easily enter it, and a stud-receiving open ing, 4, smaller than the diameter of the head of said stud,'-the said two openings of different diameter being joined by a connecting-slot, some point ofwhich, as at 3, is of less diameter than the diameter of the said stud, as designated best in Fig. 3, where the stud is shown in section as in the entrance-opening, and in dotted circle in the receiving-opening, the

dotted lines connecting the two showing the.

space required for the stud while passing from one to the other of the said openings. It will be noticed that these dotted lines are more distant from each other than the edges of the plate of which the clamp is composed at the point 3, and consequently as the stud a passes such point 3 the two arms 0 0 of the clamp separate, the narrow or fine slit 5 at or near its end permitting the arms to spring in the necessary manner. The slit 5 is enough narrower than the diameter of the stud a, and the metal of which the lock-clasp is made is of such stiffness as to prevent the same yielding sufficiently to permit the passage of the said stud out through the said slot 5 unless the arms of the lock-clasp are sprung one above the other or into different planes; but suchis not the preferable manner of unhooking the corset. The shape of the walls of the slot connecting the two openings 2 4 may be Varied without departing from what I consider to be my inventionas, for instance, in Fig. 4 the narrow part of the said slot is more extended than in Figs. 1 and 3, the inner edges of the metal of the said arms being straight and parallel for a short distance instead of being brought to a point as in Fig. 3. Either plan works equally well.

I do not broadly claim a spring-arm to close laterally behind the passage of the stud, as that is old; but prior to my invention I am not aware that a lock-clasp, such as shown, was ever made from one piece of metal.

I claim- 1. The combination, with a corset-steel or busk provided with a headed stud, of a steel or busk provided with a lock-clasp composed of spring-arms connected therewith and having a stud-entering opening and a stud-receiving opening joined by a connecting-slot made narrower, substantially as described, than the diameter of the said stud to permit the passage of the said stud-entering opening into the stud-receiving opening and then contract behind the said stud and retain it locked in the said receiving-opening, for the purposes set forth.

2. The integral lock-clasp plate for corsets, consisting of the two arms 0 c separated by the narrow slit 5, and having between them two openings, 2 4, of different size, separated by a connecting-slot narrower at some point between the said eyes than the diameter of the headed stud which is to pass from the 2 larger to be retained in the smaller eye, substantially as described.

3. The integral lock-clasp plate having a main eye, 2, for the reception of the headed stud, and the smaller stud-retaining eye 4, in com- 0 munication therewith,and divided at its outer end, as at 5, to form two springs, substantially as described, whereby the stud may be held in the eye 4, as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name 3 3 to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

THEODORE O. BATES.

W'itnesses:

G. W. GREGORY, B. J. NoYEs. 

